Trapped in a world he is not designed to cope with, Dave-El (the true Kryptonian name of alleged Earth creature David Long) writes about comics, Doctor Who, politics and whatever damned thing pops into his unbalanced mind.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Welcome to my frog...er, blog, I'm So Glad My Suffering.Amuses You.I'm Dave-El and I'm not as think as you drunk I am! Hey, come back here, 2015, you bastard! Yeah, I said it! You're a bastard, 2015. You killed a lot of people but....I gotta say it, I love ya anyway! I do! I loves you, you old bastard! I mean, the Duke Boo Devils....uh, Blue...Blue Devils won the NCAAAAAAA Men's Basketball Championship! Oh hell yeah! Woo hoo! Yeah! DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE!!! And then....and then....go figure, man, Duke goes and wins a game bowl football....wait, hold on....a football bowl game, there you go! So Duke's kickin' ass in basketball AND football AND....I don't know, maybe checkers, who knows? Hey, 2015, you let gay people get married! Good on you! Why should straight people be the only ones to suffer, am I right? Am I right? Hey, don't leave me hangin', bro! You know what else you done good at, 2015? You gave us some sweet pics of Pluto! Pluto, I'll have you know, is not just Mickey Mouse's dog, it's a planet! Yeah, yeah, yeah, some know it all scientists said it's not a planet but I say, fuck 'em, I say. Fuck all of 'em, it's a planet! Hey, that guy...you know, that guy, that guy with the, you know, the hat. Francis Pope! Yeah! Hold it! Hold it! Hold it! That's Pope Francis! Yeah, that's right, the Pope! You saw where he came to America? Thousands of people, millions of 'em, came out to see him! That was sick! He sold out Madison Square Garden! And he outscored the Knicks 2 to 1! Man, the Knicks suck! Oh yeah, 2015, great idea having Donald Rump....Rump bump...Trump! running for President! It was good for a lot of laughs! For awhile. Gotta be honest with you, shit ain't funny anymore. Sorry, dude, gotta calls 'em as I sees 'em. Now you wanna know what you did that was really funny, 2015? You wanna know? I can tell you. You wanna me to tell you? OK, I'll tell ya! Hoverboards on fire! Hell, yeah! That's some sick shit there! Hoverboards! Fire! Wow! Hey, speakin' of seeing stuff, which was saying about seein' when I was talkin' 'bout Trump earlier and now I've lost control of this sentence. Hell with it. Saw some damn fine movies this year, for reals! Avengers and Ant Man were awesome! Woo-hoo! Off the hook, man! And that Pixar movie about the emotions, Inside Outside...or something like that, yeah, that (sniff!) made me cry. Really did! 2015, you bastard, I love you, you know that? And Star Wars: The Force Wakes Up?! Dee-Am! Yeah! Did not suck!!! Way to go, 2015!! Oh, oh, oh, oh! How could I forget Doctor Who? DOCTOR WHOOOOOOOOOO! Badadadum! Badadadum! Badadadum! Badadadum! Ooooooweeeoooooooooo! Ooooooweeeoooooooooo! Whoa! Getty a little woozy there. OK, OK, OK, OK!! All righty then. I think I need to go lie down for a while. You know, 2015, you did some bad shit this year, I'm not gonna lie. But you know what? You did some good shit too! Really, you did. You really, really, really.Did. So let me fill this glass yet again and raise a toast....hold on second, need to steady myself...and raise a toast to 2015. So long 2015, you bastard! Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna....I'm gonna go lie down...somewhere....<Thwump!>Right here. I'm gonna lie down right here. You all be good...good to one....ano-<Snore!>

My initial review of the year 2015was not very positive. Of course, tongue was firmly lodged into cheek with a critique of a year barely hours old, a comment on the "instant gratification is too slow" mentality that guides our modern culture. But looking at 2015 from the other end of the spectrum, from the last day of a 365 day slog, its hard not to look back at the year, sigh and slouch your shoulders. Death is a part of that whole "circle of life" thing but Death seemed to have a particularly hard stranglehold on the past year with outrageous acts of bloody violence. In January, the massacre at the offices of the French humor magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris took 9 lives on the day of the attack by Muslim extremists connected to al Qaeda. Six more lives lost in the two days following. In November, Muslim extremists, this time connected to ISIS, reared their ugly head to take the lives of 130 people. In the middle east, ISIS continues a daily reign of terror and murder against the people of that region which has contributed to the mass of refugees fleeing from Syria and the surrounding region. If people are being killed by ISIS directly, the hundreds, thousands have lost their lives making the treacherous crossings into Europe. Nations have been divided on how to deal with this refugee crisis. Despite the acts of terror in January and November, France remained committed to taking in refugees. Germany has likewise been a open bastion of relief to the tide of people seeking to escape the violence of their homeland. Other countries, however, have taken harder lines and sealed their borders. In the country founded by immigrants and refugees, the United States, political forces have spoken out against providing aid to these people, stoking fires of hate and fear. The slaughter in San Bernadino, CA seemed to give credence to those fears. A married Muslim couple went on a rampage of murder, incited by their radicalization, a condition that seemed to have passed unnoticed by a lot of people. This case does bring up a legitimate fear, that radicalization of Muslims can occur almost anywhere and with little or no warning. One of the shooters was an American born citizen underscores that very real concern even as it undermines those who argue against helping refugees. What too many people in the United States want to ignore is that most of the danger posed to us by violence comes from within. With mass shootings at a community college Roseburg OR, a movie theater in Lafayette LA, a Marine recruitment office in Chattanooga TN, Charleston, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorardo and the social services office in San Bernardino and more, the United States racked up 57 mass shooting incidents in 2015. By the way, a mass shooting is defined by three or more fatalities. The live on-air murder Roanoke VA TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward in August missed that cut with "only" two deaths. Add to all that the hundreds killed in individual incidents of gun related homicides and death had a pretty good year in 2015. Meanwhile, in additions to the new tallies added to the list of the dead for 2015, part of the year was spent cleaning up after the slaughters of previous years. In April, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty of all 30 charges that he faced in connection to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Meanwhile James Holmes, the shooter who opened fire inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012, was found guilty in July ofkilling 12 people in the rampage. The year was not all bad. There were signs of change and enlightenment that point to a more positive sense of hope for the future. Who knows, we may have a future to look forward to. You know, if we don't kill ourselves first. So I raise a glass and bid farewell to the year that moves into history. So long 2015, you bastard.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Hi there! Dave-El here, your blogger with the soul of an angel... food cake. This is I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, your flaming hoverboard of a blog.
Posting quality material on a blog everyday is not easy and neither is it cheap. Also not easy and cheap? Whatever stupid shit I post here.
So once in a while I have to turn over some blog space to one of my sponsors. So today's post is from a long time sponsor of this blog that we haven't heard from in a while. So please give our sponsor your attention and I'll be back with a few words at the close of today's post._________________________________
DO YOU NEED A VAN?!!?
Does it need to be PLAIN?! WHITE?! and UNMARKED?!?!!
Then I've got a deal for YOU!
I'm Dwayne Fontaine and I'm ready to make a deal on the plain white unmarked van of your choice here at PLAIN WHITE UNMARKED VAN EMPORIUM!!!!
Are you a well armed individual with a need to transport mass quantities of guns, rifles, grenades and other death dealing devices to unleash hell on Earth against a group of people gathered in public somewhere minding their own damn business?

Well, go on and git yer guns as is your God given 2nd Amendment right but as soon as you turn those guns on people who ain’t done nothing to you, you’re on a fast track to hell where the Devil himself will have you chained naked to a sharp spikey rock where one of his dark evil minions will shoot you in the balls which will grow back…painfully I might add…and he’ll shoot you there every damn day for eternity. But until you commit your heinous act of mass murder and be condemned to unholy eternal torment, YOU'RE GONNA NEED A VAN!!
At PLAIN WHITE UNMARKED VAN EMPORIUM, we have a vast selection of plain white unmarked vans! Why so many? Because my stupid ass son in law ordered too many!! Two zeroes after the 1 is 100! Four zeroes after the 1 is 10,000!! That's right! 10,000 plain white unmarked vans filling up my lot!! And I need to get 'em out of here! So now is the time to buy!
Are you a person filled with the burning passions and uncontrollable urges to do sick, perverted things to kidnapped women and men in a rolling dungeon of sex, torture and depravity?
YOU SICK SON A OF A BITCH! You're the reason that hell exists!! You are a blight on society, an abomination among decent folks and one day you're going to get caught and put in the lowest cell in a pound you in the ass prison where you'll be the bitch slave of a cellmate named Bubba Mae who'll trade you like a cheap whore around the other prisoners, giving out oral sex for cigarettes until the day you take your own miserable life and descend until the hell that awaits you, an eternity of being a bitch slave to a spike covered firebreathing hell beast who looks just like Bubba Mae! But until the day you are punished by man and by God for your sickening acts of sex and violence, YOU'RE GONNA NEED A VAN!!!
Good credit, bad credit! I DON'T CARE! You're a disgusting excuse for a human being and I want you off my lot as soon as possible behind the wheel of a plain white unmarked van!!
So come on down to PLAIN WHITE UNMARKED VAN EMPORIUM!!!! We're located off exit 42 by the interstate on Sewer Plant Road between Dollar General and Family Dollar and across the road from the County Crack-Meth Rehab clinic. We're open Monday through Saturday until 9:00 PM. We're closed on Sunday because we're in church, dammit, and you should be too if you have any chance at redeeming your sin shattered soul!
But until you do, for whatever violent, murderous, rapey, torturous, hideous, depraved, terrorizing, sick, twisted, deviant, vicious, perverted, terrible, stomach-churning, gut wrenching, God awful, God forsaken and God dammned thing you're gonna do, YOU'RE GONNA NEED A VAN!!__________________________________
So.
It appears that Dwayne Fontaine's medication isn't working too good right now. Well, poor guy, he's under a lot of stress and he does have a lot of plain white unmarked vans to sell.
In case you're curious, for more on Plain White Unmarked Van Emporium, click HERE and HEREand HEREand HERE and HERE.OK, that's enough for me. Thanks for dropping by and I'll be back tomorrow with not one but two (TWO!!) posts looking back at the year that was, 2015.
Until then, remember to be good to one another.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Another Star Wars post?I've got a bad feeling about this. Star Wars: The Force Awakens continues to make news, breaking all sorts of records. So far, the movie has made a gazillion dollars...I mean, literally, a gazillion. In fact, no one in the world has any money. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has all the money. While SW:TFA (pronounced Swahtafa) remains very successful and very well liked, there are some bits and pieces that have elicited some criticism, some fairly and others most unfairly. Rey is a Mary Sue. A "Mary Sue" is a derogatory term applied to a perfect protagonist. For more discussion on this type of character, click here. Much has been made of Rey's relative ease at using the Force compared to Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy. But it bears remembering that Luke has no concept of the Force when Ben Kenobi tells Luke about it; whereas Rey has heard of the legend of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo has told her that the stories of the Force are all true. It might be argued that Rey is an ascended fan girl, if you will. She has knowledge that Luke lacked and thus can use her imagination and will to apply that knowledge. And Rey has a different background, forced to survive on her own as opposed to Luke who had the love and protection of his aunt and uncle. If Rey is superior to Luke, its due to a unique perspective that Luke did not possess.

Kylo Ren is a whiny emo bastard. Actually, it's hard to argue with that one. But Ren, for all his posturing with the dark side of the Force and poncing about in a black helmet, is at this stage of his development more Anakin Skywalker than Darth Vader and Anakin was, to be blunt, a whiny emo bastard. When Kylo Ren removes his helmet in front of Rey to expose an unscarred face framed by cascading black hair, its clear that Ren is only a wannabe Darth Vader. The question then becomes, how far is he prepared to go to full on embrace the Darth Vader he aspires to be? When we first met Darth Vader in the original trilogy, Vader was fully formed by the tragedies and sacrifices he had made in pursuit of the dark side of the Force. Kylo Ren is very much still at the beginning of that journey and as such, is going to be a much different character.The Force Awakens is a rehash of A New Hope. The parallels between the two films are fairly obvious and inescapable. But arguably, it is an important element to echo those original events to bring the Star Wars franchise to a new start and a new audience. The similarities are not perfect matches between the two movies so The Force Awakens was both new and familiar at the same time. That being said, Episode VIII better venture into more unexplored territory. I have four words as to why a lack of original direction would be a bad idea for the sequel: Star. Trek. Into. Darkness. And there are bit and pieces that some fans want to obsess over and pick apart but for the majority of the entire population of Earth that has seen this movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens holds up as an enjoyable movie and a great new beginning for the Star Wars franchise._________________________________Rounding out today's post, here are some reheated Tweets from my Twitter account riffing on the Episode VII title.

So that's it from me today. Click here for my review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. For a review by a better writer than me, click here for Ken Levine's take. Be back tomorrow for a new post on some damn thing or another. Until then, remember to be good to one another.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Hi there. If the post you're reading right now is not about Doctor Who, Star Wars, comic books, bozo politicians or any of the other goofball things I write about here, then that means, as the young people say, "shit got real". As I write this on Saturday night (12/26/2015), my mother is in the hospital and isn't in very good shape. Her blood pressure was at one point as high as 193/115 which is most decidedly not good. She's been physically ill, delirious and incoherent. I've mentioned before about her challenges with physical and mental health over the last year or so. She's been able to manage on her own for a long while but that's not been the case for awhile. The family that lives close to her have managed to keep an eye on her as best they can but mom's clearly in need of more constant oversight, more so than the current resources of the family and her insurance can provide. This has been a real struggle for everyone involved. It's hard to watch someone so beloved by the family give way to the ruinous ravages of old age. It's hard to know there's only so much that can be done. It's hard not to think there is more that can be done. It's just hard to deal. But deal we must, as best as we can. Be good to one another. ________________________Amended as of Monday, 12/28/2015, 11:34 AMThere were concerns my mom may have had a stroke. She did not but its becoming clear that even with assistance, she can't stay in her own home. Right as of today, we are looking at nursing homes and other assisted living facilities. So far our options are very limited but we're hopeful a solution can be found. Over the next few days, I will probably engage in the usual goofball posts that are the norm for this blog. But humor (or its alleged equivalent) has always been my best defense with stress. When I have a better grasp of what's going on with my mom's care, I will share that here when I feel I can do so.Thanks for reading and be good to one another.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Hello, Whovians! Two days ago was Christmas Day and the premier of the new Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Husbands of River Song. Over seven and a half years ago, we and the Doctor met River Song for the first time which was also the last time as River sacrificed herself to save the Doctor (and, incidentally, a few thousand people as well). Since then, all of the Doctor's encounters with River have filled in the timey-wimey bits of their relationship as they moved through time in different directions. The Doctor knows the details of her death but River's life was a mystery. Bit by bit, the story of River Song emerges, the time lost daughter of two of the Doctor's companions, raised to be the ultimate weapon to kill the Doctor and instead, comes to love the Doctor as no other has. But with each detail we learn, we close the circle on River Song just a bit more, bringing us closer to final fate in the Forest of the Dead. But before that fate, there is one bit to be filled in, one more chapter in the story of the Doctor and River Song.One last night. My look back at this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special continues after the spoiler caution.

And we're off in 5...4...3...2...1...

The Husbands of River Song

by Steven Moffat

It's Christmas in the year 5343 where the TARDIS is parked in a remote human colony that looks like Trap Street from Face the Raven. A local named Nardole knocks at the TARDIS door and the Doctor pops out with antlers on his head. Apparently the TARDIS is trying to cheer the Doctor up with holographic holiday headwear. Anyway, Nardole is looking for the surgeon (The Doctor: "Close enough.") who has been summoned to save the life of King Hydroflax who has been shot in the head with a diamond. By the way, the person who summoned the surgeon? The wife of King Hydroflax, River Song? Wait! What?The Doctor is rather thrilled to see River but River has no idea who this person is. Yes, she remembers who the Doctor is but last she saw him, he was the in the last body of his 12 regenerations. She knows all 12 faces of the Doctor and has zero expectation that there would be any more. So the Doctor plays out the role of the hapless surgeon she hired to cut the King's head off.Wait! What? Seems River is running a con to secure the diamond deeply embedded in the King's skull and the simplest way to retrieve that diamond is to remove the King's head. The Doctor objects to this course of action but it's a moot point as King Hydroflax helpfully unscrews is own head from his own body. Seems the King is only a head attached to a large robot body. (And even that is not what it really seems as we will see later.) The Doctor and River get the head into a duffle bag (no worries, River checked it for leaks first) and teleport out to meet up with Ramone, River's henchman and, even if he doesn't remember it, another of River's husbands. From there, the Doctor follows River to his TARDIS which she intends to borrow. River:"(The Doctor's) never noticed before." The Doctor: "Maybe he'll notice now."Inside, the Doctor gives the "bigger on the inside" speech that he's wished others had given.

The Doctor: “My entire understanding of physical space has been transformed! Three dimensional Euclidian geometry has been torn up, thrown in the air, and snogged to death! My grasp of the universal constants of physical reality has been changed forever.”

Despite River (who knows what she's doing more than the Doctor) at the controls, the TARDIS will not take off if it registers someone being inside AND outside the TARDIS at the same time. For example, King Hydroflax, his head in a bag in the TARDIS, his body outside. A body that is acting with a disturbing degree of independence, borrowing first Nardole's head, then Ramone's to track River and the Doctor and the king head in a bag. The Hydroflax body invades the TARDIS which helpfully puts both parts of the King in one place and off we go! Then River and the Doctor (with the king head in a bag) escape from the rampaging body onto a space cruise ship. With the robot body locked behind a deadlock seal, River and the Doctor go to a lavish dining room. It seems the ship is a high class affair that caters to the most ruthless killers in the universe, the more genocidal, the better. It is here that River intends to sell the diamond in the King's head. But the robot half of King Hydroflax has other ideas and crashes the scene with help from a waiter named Flemming who has betrayed River's confidence. Flemming entices robot Hydroflax with information that River Song knows of the renegade Time Lord called the Doctor who's head would make a superior replacement for the previous King head which is irrevocably going to die thanks to the diamond in his skull. So robot Hydroflax shoots himself in the head. (Yeah, it looks like the true king authority rests in the robot, not in the head.) River vehemently denies knowing where the Doctor is. Yes, she loves him but she truly believes he cannot love her in return. "It’s like loving the stars themselves," River says. "You don’t expect a sunset to admire you back.”But the penny that's been spinning in the air for nearly the 60% of this episode finally drops and River at last realizes the Doctor had been with her all along. As the Doctor says, "Hello, sweetie." Then the ship gets struck by a meteor strike. Which is not a coincidence. River chose to meet her buyer on this ship because of the historical records which showed the ship being destroyed by a meteor strike. River and the Doctor take turns rescuing each other until they both realize the gig is up and they both escape in the Doctor's TARDIS but not before River is knocked unconscious. The ship has crashed on the planet Darillium where River Song told the 10th Doctor she had just left the Doctor on what turned out to be their last night together. The crash site is right next to the Singing Towers. There the Doctor gives a worker at the crash site the diamond and tells him to use some of the wealth from that diamond to build a restaurant in that exact spot. The Doctor goes into the future after the restaurant is built and makes a reservation for 4 years into the future for the table on the balcony overlooking the Singing Towers. By this point, River has regained consciousness and joins the Doctor for their last night together. Although on Darillium, a single night lasts 24 years. And they both lived happily ever after.

After the emotional intensity of the last three episodes of Series 9, a lighter romp was (pun alert!) just what the Doctor ordered. And right from the jump with antlers on the Doctor's head, that's what we get. An increasingly bizarre set of circumstances unfolding at a pace faster than the rapid fire back and forth between the Doctor and River energizes this holiday adventure. But if the thrills and laughs of the first 2/3 of this episode come almost too fast to count, a sliver of melancholy makes itself known. River's diary is almost full and she knows that the Doctor who gave it to her would know just how long her diary would need to be. River senses her time...or at least her time with the Doctor...is nearing its end. And when the Doctor realizes where the ship is going to crash, he too knows the end of his time with River cannot be avoided. But as River tells the Doctor, "Happily ever after doesn’t mean forever. It just means time, a little time.” And since one night on Darillium lasts 24 years, the Doctor and River have that time. If this truly marks the last time we get to see River Song, it is quite a high note to go out on. Alex Kingston is once more brilliant as our action archaeologist of the future. By turns and sometimes all at once funny, wise, sexy, adventurous, sad, introspective and joyous, this is Alex's best yet at bringing River Song to life.But its also a bit sad if this is indeed the end for River Song because her rapport with Peter Capaldi's Doctor is nothing short of astonishing. I'm not saying Capaldi's work alongside Kingston is better than Matt Smith's, just unique and something I would want to see more of if possible. If you're wondering if the events of the Series 9 have any impact on the Doctor in this Christmas special, consider this: would the Doctor who had not learned the lessons of going too far to save Clara Oswald have been so accepting of facing up to his and River's last time together on Darillium? One wonders how much more of Clara does the Doctor remember. At one point, the Doctor says, “Every Christmas is last Christmas" which the Doctor heard Danny Pink say to Clara in a dream state in last year's Christmas special. Is this a hint that the Doctor may remember more of Clara since her farewell? One other side note: when Steven Moffat wrote this special, he thought it may well be his last story for Doctor Who. He ultimately re-upped for Series 10 but if he had not, The Husbands of River Song would've been quite a pinnacle to go out on. I would dare say this special is one or two on the list of best Christmas Doctor Who specials. _____________________________________And that brings this to a close for Doctor Who stuff in 2015. It's been a interesting year with a high level of quality acting and writing for Series 9 and this year's special. There are some shadows over Series 10. We know there will be one but when will it be? It looks more and more likely that Series 10 will be split over two years or bumped to 2017. But there are other questions that abound. Will this be the last series for Steven Moffat as showrunner? And what about Peter Capaldi? He has mentioned that Series 10 may well be his last series as well. But that's for the future. But for now, Doctor Who for 2015 has ended on a high note. Thanks to Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Steven Moffat, all the writers, directors and guest stars who have made Series 9 an exemplary season. I might even put it up there with Series 4 when it comes to quality sustained over a season. That's all from me for today. Another post on some dang thing or another will come your way tomorrow. And I will be back here with another Doctor Who post next Sunday. Until then, remember to be good to one another.

Heat brings out stress more than cold. That's why riots mostly happen in the summer. So combine hot weather with the already stressful time of the holiday season, well, it can be a bit much. Check out these Tweets from other people.

"But when its time for MY milk & cookies, suddenly you're lactose intolerant & on a diet!"#MrAndMrsClausArgument

"That's not the kind of stockings you stuff presents in! You got some explaining to do, mister!" #MrAndMrsClausArgument

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And that's all I have for today. Yes, we did venture out from the Fortress of Ineptitude on Christmas Day to go see this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special at Geeksboro Coffeehouse and Cinema. I'll post on that tomorrow.